Feel Good Friday – An Open Letter to All of Those That Made My Snow Day

Come join The Girl Next Door Grows Up for some
Feel Good Friday Fun!

As you know, I had a snow day on Wednesday. As far as snow days go, or any other days for that matter, went awesome! I have a few people to thank for an awesome day:

My neighbor Lana, thank you for the idea to bake cookies. I was originally going to bake bread, but when you said that you were going to bake cookies, it sounded like way more fun. You and your family are always doing fun things like that. Thanks for the inspiration.

Giada De Laurentiis, thank you for an awesome cookie sandwich recipe. Marie saw this on TV and wanted to make it. I thought, what better time to make delicious treats than trapped inside during Snowmageddon (which actually not as dramatic and has resulted in newly developed trust issues with my local weather person). Also, I thought it would be cool for her to see something done on TV and feel a sense of pride that she actually could make it. Marie really looks up to you. And in the age of Miley Cyrus, I think it’s great that there is someone who is using her creativity in a positive way as opposed to dancing up on a pole.

As it turns out, my Babes are natural bakers. If there is a camp or an extracurricular club to develop their palettes and food presentation skills, I need to find it. (Giada or Ann Burrell, do you travel for toddler/preschool seminars? If not, please have your managers look into it. It would be great for birthday parties. But, shhh, don’t tell those Real Housewives of Beverly Hills about this little Midwestern girl’s fabulous idea. I don’t want Taylor latching on after her $60,000 birthday party for her four year old.) Actually, I think if they could just play with a Kitchen Aid Mixer or any high powered small kitchen appliance, they’d be happy. Thomas really took a liking to the Kitchen Aid Mixer and wasn’t happy with level three. He wanted MORE POWER!

Ghiradelli, thank you for your 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chips. They. Are. Luscious. Sorry, Nestle Tollhouse, you will always hold a soft, gooey semisweet place in my heart. But you, Ghiradelli, “I love you” doesn’t seem adequate enough to truly express my adoration for your product. I think the 4 ounces of cream cheese to 2 ½ cups of powdered sugar filling was suppose to be the star of this cookie sandwich, but you were the show stealer.

Michelle S., thank you, thank you, thank you for showing me the light when it comes to quality baking pans. My cookies were always had very burnt crispy bottoms and would tilt in the oven. You told me that the baking pans that I bought at the grocery store for $5 along with my craptastic nonstick pans were the reason. In my head, I knew that this made sense, however I didn’t realize just how right you were. These cookies were perfection. And the pans didn’t warp in the oven! Mwuah!!


See, here's how the day went:

Future Bakers of America

MORE POWER!

One of the best parts of baking.

Yum!

Waiting . . .

The frosted half.  Delish, right?

"Cookie!  Yea!" 

She frosted that all by herself!  She's so proud of herself
and so am I!

The final product!  Can't you just taste that dark
chocolate cookie with the creamy-sugary filling?!

Thank you, everyone, for your participation in a wonderful day. I found project that both Babes can do together and love it! (This is no easy task for an almost two year old and almost five year old, mind you). Being a mom is peppered with lots and lots of challenges. So when I have a good day and feel everyone’s needs were met AND we had the kind of fun which created some warm and fuzzy memories, I feel like a super star.

Which hopefully they’ll remember and not the month of January where we all became sloths in front of the TV.

Have a great weekend!

Snow Day Rambles

*said in hushed tones*

Shhhh! It’s a snow day! Although that means not rushing off to drop Marie off at preschool and to take Thomas to story time, it does mean that I will be entertaining The Babes all. day. long. And it looks that my writing time in the afternoon while Thomas takes a two-three hour nap and Marie quietly entertains herself are soon coming to end.

So this morning, I snuck out to the computer like a secret ninja on a mission to get some blogging stuff done. I am working on this post right now, but it’s not flowing right out. Don’t you hate that when you have these thoughts and feelings, but you can’t seem to get the words just right to express exactly what you are feelings? So frustrating, right?

And about this snow day . . . between Al Roker and our local weather man, I thought there would be more snow than this. I could be wrong because I haven’t actually gone outside yet coupled with my deficiency in depth perception, but it looks like we got six inches. Not the eight to twelve that was expected.

And I do not think I was the only one who was expecting a ton more snow since the grocery store was a mad house. I thought I was all set, but yesterday, then the weather man was crying out that THE SNOW WAS COMING RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

I panicked.

I rushed to the grocery store like a frantic fool because we didn’t have any backup milk and we were out of bananas and oh my goodness we need more flour if we are going to do that baking project and we cannot be out of salsa in case The Babes want black bean tacos.

Mind you, I had already gone to the grocery store in preparation for this storm over the weekend so we already had plenty of stuff.

So I get home, and I used the rest of my distilled white vinegar to clean out the humidifier in Marie’s room. OH NO! I ran out of distilled vinegar! What am I going to do?! Wonder if there is an emergency in The Snow Storm that requires white distilled vinegar! The horror!!

Seriously, I need to get a grip when Al Roker looks into the camera with all his doom and gloom. I think he’s talking to that person who laughs in the face of Mother Nature. I totally respect Her abilities and never underestimate Her fury. (No woman likes to be underestimated).

So today, I will be hanging out with The Babes. I am guessing there will be some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Sesame Street in our future. We will also be trying this:

Chocolate Sandwich Cookies on the Food Network

Marie loves the Food Network. In addition, to anything Giada, she watches Chopped and Worst Cooks in America. When she refused to eat my homemade potpie last night, I half expected her to say, “Mommy, I do not like the flavor profile of this dish. Also, your knife cuts for this chicken need some work. You have been chopped.” It’s coming soon, I know.

Anyway, she has been wanting to make these cookies for months now. Well, here’s our big chance. Let’s home Thomas is along for the ride on this one.

What’s the weather like by you? Are you doing anything fun today?